A crown prince from a small Arab nation is kidnapped by Communists in order to stop the installation of an American missile base within the kingdom. The Commies have sequestered the kidnapped prince in an unknown location. Acting on intelligence information that indicates the prince is being held in the area of Hong Kong, the US calls on their Far East operative Casey Reed (Gene Barry) who works under the guise of a shady nightclub singer. After an informant is killed outside of his club Reed works on a tip to infiltrate a gold smuggling operation by ingratiating himself with a Macao syndicate to to smuggle gold from Hong Kong to mainland China disguised as cheap trinkets in order to locate the prince.
Confused by the plot? Me too and we aren't the only ones because it appears after splicing the scenes together it was decided to do voice over narration with just about every scene to explain what we just watched. Apparently director Edward Cahn, who cut his teeth in the business as a film editor, couldn't fit the pieces together without the grating narration. The entire film is set bound and was shot at KTTV studios sound stage as well some scenes shot in their basement so the overall quality is about like a one hour television program of the time, if that.
Things were going along pretty well for Gene Barry about this time. He had recently worked on a couple of Sam Fuller written and directed productions. Finished up 'Thunder Road' with Robert Mitchum and had signed on to do the 'Bat Masterson' TV series which first aired at the same time Hong Kong Confidential' premiered. So it's hard to figure why Barry would sign on for this 2nd feature cheapie. No matter. It wasn't a career killer for Barry.
The film though not well made is modestly entertaining though sometimes in unintended ways. In two unintentionally hilarious scenes, Cahn decided to have Barry perform a couple of truly awkward lounge tunes. The fact that Cahn left these in the final cut as well as the aforementioned added narration, tells us that the notoriously parsimonious Cahn was going to go kicking and screaming before he spent another nickle on this film.
As a point of interest, co-star, iconic 1950's mainstay Allision Hayes, would go on to work in multiple Bat Masterson episodes with Barry in the recurring role of Ellie Winters.
